Lindon Baptiste never planned on being an NCAA softball umpire, but sometimes things are just meant to be.
During a 21-year career in the Army, Baptiste found himself stationed at Fort Hood in Texas and playing in an intramural softball game. When the umpire botched a call, Baptiste voiced his opinion and was told, “If you think you can do better, come try it.”
He accepted the challenge and soon found himself officiating not only softball, but basketball and football as well.
For the next several years, Baptiste officiated all three sports, rotating through their respective seasons and honing his skills. He started calling some travel softball tournaments in 2003 and began studying the differences between slow pitch and fast pitch.
After retiring from the Army in 2009, he moved to Virginia and added officiating semi-pro football games to his résumé. During that time, he went to a tryout for replacement football officials to fill in during the NFL’s referee lockout in 2012, and he was chosen to be a back judge for a game between New Orleans and Atlanta.
“I have a picture somewhere of me running stride for stride for stride with [Saints wide receiver] Marques Colston,” Baptiste laughingly shared with Tech Sideline. “But the next week, the regular [officials] came back, so I was a one-hit wonder [in the NFL].”
Still, his officiating career continued with basketball games in both the MEAC and CIAA conferences — at the Division I and Division II level, respectively — and umpiring softball when his schedule permitted.
Baptiste eventually returned to Texas, and some frustration with basketball scheduling pushed him to get serious about softball. He attended his first umpiring school in 2013, and after gaining experience, he was assigned to umpire games in the Sun Belt Conference, along with other mid-major schools.
As his skill improved, so did his opportunities. In April 2019, he found himself in Starkville, Miss., umpiring a series between No. 17 Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
The first game of the series found him at third base, a 21-0 Ole Miss run-rule victory. In Game 2, he rotated to first base, a 6-0 Mississippi State win. Game 3 of the series found Baptiste at home plate.
“I was nervous as all get out until the first pitch,” Baptiste recalled. “Then it was just softball.”
The contest went to extra innings, with the Rebels prevailing 3-1.
“To date, I believe that was probably as perfect of a game as I have ever had,” Baptiste said. “And I have been chasing [perfection] ever since.”
Today, Baptiste umpires primarily in the SEC, with ACC games filling any open weekends. In early March, he found himself in Oxford, umpiring the Ole Miss doubleheader against UT Martin, before driving to Virginia, where he called seven games during the Hokie Invite in Salem.
He left Salem on Sunday, March 8, and drove 20-plus hours home to Texas before going back on the road. He umpired at Stephen F. Austin on Tuesday night, stopping at Louisiana Tech on Wednesday night (for a game that was rained out) on his way to Tuscaloosa for a top-10 showdown between Arkansas and Alabama. A visit to Columbia for some South Carolina games is also on deck.
During SEC series, Baptiste can often be found behind the plate for Game 3, since that contest will either determine the series winner or if one team will sweep the weekend.
“Lindon’s solid,” D1Softball associate editor Justin McLeod said. “He’s by the book and no-nonsense. Honestly, I think he’s becoming one of the more recognizable umpires in the game. He knows the rules, he’s even-keeled on the field and he’s one of the sport’s real up-and-comers on the officiating side.”
Virginia Tech assistant coach Josh Johnson remembers Baptiste from his four years at Mississippi State.
“What I always liked about him is his demeanor, especially in tense situations,” the Hokies’ pitching coach said. “He remains professional under pressure from crowds and criticism, but is also friendly and tries to work with the coaches. He’s consistent — not only during the game, but also from game to game as well, allowing coaches to be comfortable knowing that you will get his best.
“And if you ever have a problem, he is more than happy to listen and provide feedback on what he is seeing. As a coach, I appreciate knowing that when he’s on the field with us, we are going to get a fair, professional game from him.”
While umpiring, Baptiste is quick to keep things in perspective. He recalled an SEC clash last year between two heated rivals. One of the coaches warned him “to be on his toes” before the game and said, “This is going to be a war; you better be ready.”
“No, I’ve been to war, and this isn’t going to be it,” Baptiste responded philosophically. “It’s just a game, and at the end of the game, we’re all going home.”
Baptiste was speaking from experience with his reply. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in September 1987. His mother was not happy with his decision, and he originally promised her that he would only stay for three years. But he soon realized, “I’m pretty good at this,” and quickly moved up the ranks. He re-enlisted numerous times, eventually retiring after 21 years of service.
His army career took him all over Europe and to the Middle East. He participated in both Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. Three events during his service in the army made a particular impact on his perspective.
In December 1988, he was scheduled to fly from Frankfurt, Germany, via London, England, to Detroit, Mich., on Pan Am Flight 103, but an accident closed the autobahn, which caused him to be late and miss the flight. That flight ended up crashing in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people on board. Baptiste wasn’t aware of the crash until he got back to the base and walked into the day room.
The other soldiers “looked at me like they had seen a ghost,” he recalled. When he called his mother after hearing about the crash, she hung up on him because she thought someone was playing a cruel prank on her.
In January 1991, he was a door gunner on a helicopter that came down hard. “The army called it a hard landing,” Baptiste said. “I called it a crash.” Luckily, he avoided serious injury.
But his closest brush with death occurred when his convoy was ambushed in Afghanistan. The driver and gunner of his vehicle both died, and Baptiste was seriously wounded. After recovering, he decided to retire from the army after 21 years, six months and seven days.
Baptiste, who lives in San Antonio, is dedicated to the training of young officials and is currently mentoring 16 umpires. They reach out with questions, and he will watch film of their work and provide constructive feedback.
During the offseason, he still officiates high school basketball games, even doing middle school games where he asks to be paired with new officials so he can teach and develop them.
“If you train them right, they will get yelled at less, and they will stick around,” Baptiste said, noting the national shortage of officials at every level of every sport.
At the same time, he constantly works on improving his own game. On televised games, umpires get a “strike zone report” on how accurately they called balls and strikes. Every pitch is charted by location, and the umpire gets a scorecard afterwards on their accuracy.
Although it is calibrated for a batter who is 5-foot-10, which doesn’t account for taller or shorter batters, Baptiste still considers it a great improvement tool.
When he is umpiring on the bases, he has a specific routine to keep him dialed in. If there is a runner on base, he will verbally say the count on the batter, then “my runner, my bat” to remind himself that he has to watch for the runner leaving early, as well as check swing responsibility. (With a runner on first, the third-base umpire moves to the middle of the field to prepare for a potential call at second.)
“I do that every time I have a runner on first,” Baptiste said. “It keeps my mind from drifting and keeps me focused on the situation.”
Some coaches consider Baptiste as a bit of a stickler for calling illegal pitches, but he considers it simply enforcing the rules.
“If it’s a rule, it should be enforced,” Baptiste said. “If they don’t want it enforced, it shouldn’t be a rule. … It’s not fair to the pitchers to inconsistently call it.”
He likes working with umpires who share his philosophy because the rules need to be applied equally.
“If I am the only one calling illegal pitches, then the focus is on the individual umpire, not the [umpiring] team,” he said.
He also loves the SEC’s central video review system. In the conference, when a coach challenges a call, the play goes to a centralized site, where a replay official reviews the footage, upholds or changes the call, and then communicates the decision to the umpires at the competition site. The on-site umpires won’t see video of the play until after the game. He has had 41 such challenges, but only four reversals.
Baptiste also shared that the NCAA dictated this season that even in games without centralized review, the umpire who made the call cannot be involved in the video review process. The goal is to make sure the play is reviewed objectively.
“I have heard of umpires that will not change a call,” he said. “That causes people to lose faith in the system. … The new rule should help [with] that.”
Baptiste considers occasional chirping from the fans as part of the game and can sometimes be seen bantering with fans between innings.
“If I didn’t hear chirping, I would worry,” Baptiste said with a grin. “You have to be strong enough to make the right call, even if it’s at the wrong venue at the wrong time. I just want it to be right. … But you can rest assured that I will always give my best.”